visual artist and curator based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Although the wall drawing remains on view at the gallery, Studio 21 is taking my drawings on paper to Papier 17 in Montreal. When I describe the feeling of drawing, I find myself rubbing my fingers together as if I’m feeling the texture of the paper. How wonderful to think of a whole art fair dedicated to the material. Though not exactly paper, mylar is so buttery to draw on I love it as much as I loved the Stonehenge I was committed to for a decade. I can’t really let it go. Drawing on the wall however is somewhere between. The charcoal is easily pushed around on the smooth surface, and with a matte paint, it feels just like drawing on a thick rag page.

FeathersStudio 213 to 29 March 2017
opening reception: 3 March 2017, from 5 to 7pm

“In Feathers Katie Belcher exhibits a selection of work that draws on Emile Zola’s Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris). As part of her ongoing project, Faisan, these new drawings rely on the memory of plucking a bird for the first time. Through gestural charcoal and erasure marks, Belcher rehearses and exaggerates her own lack of expertise in executing this once common culinary process. Faisan as a project aims to merge the process (the doing—en faisant) with the subject (the pheasant—faisan). Accompanied by photographs of plucked feathers, and an energetic drawing done on site, Belcher’s newest works on paper investigate a basket of feathers—the site of Zola’s narrative of innocence and brutality in the novel’s fourth chapter.”

Having been unable to really give legs to my project, Food for thought, I instead handed it to Eyelevel Gallery. It was an amazing project to be a part of, and we there is more to come. What a joy this week to read Julie Hollenbach’s feature in Canadian Art about Food for thoughts and Amy Wong’s The Art of Hanging Pictures which took place this past summer at Eyelevel.